On the grounds now explained, we may understand the language of the prophet Isaiah, who says of the wicked that "they hatch cockatrice' eggs; he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh forth into a viper." The reptile here alluded to under the name of cockatrice, is the tzepho or tzephoni; which, we find, lays eggs so similar to those of poultry, as to be mistaken and eaten for them. Labat farther relates that he crushed some eggs of a large serpent, and found several young in each egg; which were no sooner freed from the shell than they coiled themselves into the attitude of attack, and were ready to spring on whatever came in their way. In the forty-ninth chapter of Genesis we find the remarkable prediction uttered by Jacob in reference to Dan, that he "shall be a serpent in the way, an adder in the path, which biteth the horse's heels." The original term here is shephiphon, and is understood by several authors to denote the cerastes, a very poisonous kind of viper, distinguished by having horns. This animal, we are informed by Mr. Bruce, moves with great rapidity, and in all directions, forward, backward, and sideways. When he wishes to surprise any one who is too far from him, he creeps with his side towards the person, and his head averted, till, judging his distance, he turns round and springs upon him. "I saw one of them at Cairo crawl up the side of a box in which there were many, and there lie still as if hiding himself, till one of the people who brought him to us came near him; and though in a very disadvantageous posture, sticking as it were perpendicularly to the side of the box, he leaped nearly the distance of three feet, and fastened between the man's forefinger and thumb, so as to bring the blood. The fellow showed no signs of either pain or fear; and we kept him with us full four hours, without applying any sort of remedy, or his seeming inclined to do so." The Arabs name this serpent siff, siphon, or suphon, which seems not very far distant from the root of the Hebrew word siffifon or shephiphon. It is called by the Orientals the _lier in wait_,--an appellation which agrees with the manners of the cerastes. Pliny says, that it hides its whole body in the sand, leaving only its horns exposed, which, being like grains of barley in appearance, attract birds within its reach, so as to become an easy prey. From these circumstances we see, more distinctly, the propriety of the allusion made by the patriarch to the insidious policy which was to characterize the descendants of Dan in the remoter periods of their history.